Personal Fitness & Health Ravings And Rantings

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It’s been a while since me and the wife had our last baby. And while I must confess that I loved having each single one, I don’t think I’d ever want to have another kid. I’m growing too old for this nowadays. But the memory sure was fun.

Most couples don’t realize how many preparation they need to make in order to be well prepared for the coming of either a new boy or a new girl. The first one is going to be the biggest shocker. The second one not so much, because you’ve already been through it once. But the second one is still greatly enjoyable, don’t you worry about that! Just because you’ve seen it before, it doesn’t mean the whole experience is any less enjoyable!

1. Swaddle Blankets

These types of blankets are great for babies. With them, you can mimic the way a baby feels as if he or she was still in the womb. I’m sure you can imagine how comforting that is to a very young child.

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll buy two! You can use one and have the other ready for when the first one becomes dirty. You don’t want to be without swaddle blankets when your baby starts crying.

2. Changing Pad

Assuming you like going out every once in a while, you’re going to want to have a pad for changing your baby. Babies need to ‘go’ every once in a while, as I’m sure you are well aware. You can’t control any of this. You’re basically at mother nature’s mercy here.

And let’s face it… you can’t be putting your baby on any dirty ole’ surface. You don’t know who’s been there. By using a pad, you can put down your baby anywhere for a change, without having to worry that your infant child is going to catch something yucky.

3. Diaper Bag

Not only will you require diapers… you certainly don’t want to forget a big bag to put’em all in. Plus there is plenty of other stuff you’ll want to take with you besides diapers alone. Think of totes, bottles, blankets.

Having a good bag goes a long way in keeping you as organized as you can be. You can’t be stuffing it all in e backpack. Diaper bags are designed to carry loads of baby related stuff, so you’ve gotta make good use of one!

4. Good Stroller

Not all strollers are of equal build quality. Some of them will have wheels that continuously get stuck behind everything and this can be a real drag, especially when you are trying to get somewhere fast. But if you get a good one, you’ll have an easy stroll from A to B, if you catch my pun.

If you’re smart, you’ll get a foldable one. These can really come in handy. Let’s say you’re going on a car trip with the whole family. Surely, you’ll want to take your stroller so you can drag your baby along with you more easily?

5. Baby Food Maker

There are meal processors especially designed for small children. You can use these to make home made baby food. And the home made stuff is so much more nutricious than the jarred stuff you can get at the super market. You don’t think big brands are looking out for your kid’s health, do you?

You’ll want to buy your own vegetables and fruits and puree them. Then you can freeze them and you will be able to take them out whenever you like. Me and my wife used to make baby food for up to a week. And it only took us 20 minutes on a saturday morning to make it.

Carriers are kind of like swaddle blankets. They keep the kid very close to the body and it sort of mimics how it feels when they were in the womb. It’s a very comfortable feeling to be close to somebody. And babies love being close to their mommies. Or daddies, for that matter!

Sometimes you’ll want to carry and sometimes you’ll want to stroll. It’s great to own both a carrier as well as a stroller, because it allows you to change things up and get some variation in your baby transporting activities.

7. Loads Of Diapers

Does this one even require explantation? Oh, boy… are you going to require a lot of these! I advice getting a big stash tucked away for near future use. If there’s anything babies are good at producing, it’s a big ole’ ball of brown clay. And you don’t want to be caught with your pants down, if you know what I mean!

You’re going to need both reusable ones as well as disposable ones. Reuse at home, dispose outdoors.

8. Wipes

Just like with the diapers, you will want to get a good stash of these. And just like with diapers, you will want to get reusable ones as well as disposable ones. When you’ve got a kid, you’re going to be doing lots of wiping.

Trust me on that one.

9. Onesies

This right here is currently the most popular kind of clothing item for young kids. Onesies, also referred to as body suits, are suits that cover the whole baby and they snap together at the legs.

Me and my wife always had lots of these. Babies like nothing more than a good onesie. Once again, it covers them completely and it kind of make them feels like they’re still in the womb, warm and protected. Or at least… that’s how I imagine the experience to be like!

10. A Good Crib

Babies need lots of sleep and they need a place to do it in. You can either go for a really nice looking one, or a really practical one. Round ones look nice, but convertible ones are more practical. Convertibles can be resized on the fly. That’s real handy for when your kid grows in size. And grow in size he will. Even faster than you can imagine!

If you want to find out which cradle is the best one for the money, then check out the page I just linked to and see if it can’t help you make a decent buying decision! Because you certainly don’t want to be suffering from buyer’s remorse on an expensive thing like this.

Summing It All Up

So there you have it, folks. This is the list you’re going to need in order to prepare yourself as well as you can for the coming of your (first?) baby. You’re still going to feel completely unprepared anyway, but that’s okay. It’s part of the normal procedure for a young couple becoming parents. And whether you become a happy parent or not, that is entirely up to you. The simple fact of the matter is that children can be a really great boon to your life’s happiness. You have to make the most of it and I’m sure you will find that, in the end, it was all totally worth it!

Okay, so I am now the proud owner of a completely new experience I never though I’d have. For many years now, I’ve been busting my nads on my office job. I barely managed to get in the required amount of exercise for me to stay healthy. I’m definitely paying with my health. The long hours are slowly killing me. Now that I’m in my early fourties (oh, who am I kidding… I’m 3 months away from my mid fourties), I can start feeling the weight of my age. Thanks a lot, mother nature, for making me age. I’m too fat, and I know it. I work out, but not nearly enough. To be honest, I don’t think it’s much fun. I live in a small town and we have only one gym. And it’s really, really small. And it smells funky too.

So a few weeks ago, I had a multi week holiday coming up. I had been saving up some free days. Last July, I had almost the whole month off. And I was looking for something useful to do with my time. You won’t believe this, but the first day off from my work, my long time friend Brad (whom I have known since childhood) comes along and asks me to go on a hike. A hike?? Are you kidding me??? I thought he had lost his marbles. Or maybe he was pulling a prank on me. Either way… turns out he was dead serious.

After a while… he had convinced me. It didn’t take him long. I greatest concern was that I would not be able to pull it off with my relatively old and untrained body. Brad managed to take the fear out of me by letting me in on the fact that we can go as slow or as fast as we wanted to. And we weren’t going to exhaust ourselves to death. So I said… alright, let’s go! Now, I wasn’t prepared at all, so I needed some time to make some preparations. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I made a list of everything I was going to need with the help of Brad. You’re going to need a good set of shoes, a backpack, some clothes, and ofcourse the necessary supplies for making some food and… last but not least… coffee!

Me and Brad did some research on the web. We quickly stumbled across Boot Bomb’s outdoor hiking shoes reviews. This website has a boat load of information when it comes to all things trekking! I’ve read the whole site and I am all the wiser for it. I especially liked his top trekking boots for hiking page. This guy does a really great comparison of all sorts of footwear from various brands which are really great for going into the outdoors. Suffering from a heriditary family condition, a guy like me is going to need the best hiking boots for plantar fasciitis.

It’s no fun having to deal with this affliction. But it’s good to know that there is good footwear available that helps you manage the disease. Because it really is a disease. Don’t think for one second that walking around on painful feet is a good way to live life. That condition needs to be managed, or you basically have no life at all. I spent many years of my life standing up straight. This was back when I was helping my dad out with his market stand. The many hours of standing up, in combination with the fact that I’ve always been a plus size, have caused me to develop this condition. Well, that and the fact that it is heriditary. My dad and his dad also suffered from it. Not so much on my mom’s sides. Looks like I inherited the wrong genes. Oh, woe is me!

Once all preparations had been done, we headed off to the Catskill Mountains. I’m sure you’ve heard of it if you are familiar with the noble sport of hiking. We went onto the trail. At first, it was quite breathtaking to be taking in all that nature. It sure beats the braindead office environment where I spend most of my life. Man, I can’t imagine why a guy would want to spend his life working for a living. All it took was 30 minutes into the great outdoors and I was ready to move into nature permanently. It’s a shame we didn’t encounter any treehuts, or I certainly would’ve conquered it and called it my own. Just kidding, ofcourse. I’m a very peace loving guy. And so is Brad!

Not much was spoken the first hour or so. But after about the first hour, you start to get ‘drunk on fresh air’ if you know what I mean. That’s when all the merry banter starts coming out of the woodworks. Me and Brad had such a great time. We were recollecting all the funny stuff that happened to us a long time ago when were both still in high school. Never would we have thought that our friendship would last many, many decades. Let alone that we’d be trekking on a trail and giggling like 16 year old schoolgirl.

Brad had taken along his French press coffee maker. He didn’t tell me, because he wanted it to be a surprise. The first high up top that we reached, we made camp. This was about six hours into our trek. We had done small ten minute breaks all the way through. But six hours is still a very long time to be trekking. Even when you take a ten minute pause every hour or so. We had left around noon and now it was about dinner time. So Brad gathered a bunch of rocks and put them in a circle. Then he lit up a camp fire. I could tell he did that before. I was setting up the tents as he did it.

And before you know it, we were roasting marshmellows and drinking French coffee and having an all out fantastic time. Man, I would do anything to go through it again. The feeling of satisfaction that you get when you’ve been trekking for hours… I can’t describe it with all the keyboards in the world! You’ve got to be on your way for a long time in order to get the hiking thrill. And it’s hard work. But if you’ve got some time off… what else are you going to do? Sit around the house all day, feeling the same at the end of the day as you did at the start of it?

Not me, man. Not anymore. Hiking is now part of me. You can take me off the hiking trail, but you can’t take the hiking trail out of me! Not anymore. I’m seriously considering moving into a smaller, cheaper home and then cutting back on my work days. I’m sick and tired of working all week, every week. I’d rather work four days a week and make less, so that I’ve got plenty of time and energy to go take a good hike on my three day weekend. I’m celebrating life from hereon out, fellas. The guy that I used to be… the guy who was okay with spending his whole life in an office… that guy is gone for good. And good riddance, I say!

The clock keeps on ticking and father time nor mother nature really care about the fact that us human beings are increasingly spiralling down the sh#tcan as we age. One of the worst things that can happen to you as a guy, is that your testosterone levels are going to start to drop. This can be a serious problem, especially if you enjoy getting healthy exercise on a regular basis. Many of us guys want to be lifting weights well into our middle age and beyond. But with lowering t levels, this is going to become increasingly more difficult as the years just keep on passing us by.

I myself used to be pretty fat when I was a kid. I was eating unhealthy. Way too much sugar, starches and fats. I hated myself and I wanted to do something about the whole situation. Finally, I worked up the courage to walk into the gym and finally do something about the sorry state of my health. Soon enough, I was shedding those pounds like crazy. My body firmed up immensely and I was feeling much better. Shortly thereafter, I even managed to get my very first girlfriend! I remember her complimenting me on how incredibly well I was in shape.

But now that I am older, I can feel my low t levels having their impact. So I started googling around for the top rated natural testosterone enhancers to see if I couldn’t do something to avoid those horribly dropping t levels. You don’t just want to stuff anything into your body just like that. And you certainly do not want anything that is forbidden by the law. Everybody is always interested in finding the best legal testosterone booster on the market. And when it comes to that, I am no exception to the rule.

Thankfully, after about an hour of research on the web, I found what I was looking for thanks to the site I have linked to above. At first I was afraid that these boosters were some sort of illegal and dangerous drug. Or steroids or something. But it turns out that this is not the case. T boosters are pretty much all completely natural and organic. There are no synthetic substances or compounds in there that will give you any negative side effects. If there is anything we don’t want, it’s negative side effects, like the ones you get from ‘roids. That’s just not my thing. I don’t mind staying in shape, but I ain’t competing for the Mr. Universe title either.

So all in all, I am glad that I have found a way to stay in shape, even well into middle age. Next to booster supplements, I am also using creatine and protein powder. I find that protein powder is pretty much a dime a dozen. But if you are asking yourself ‘what is the best post workout creatine supplement?‘, then follow the link and read up a bit more on that website, which I have found to be very informative. It turns out not all creatines are created alike. You’ve yourself the micronized creatine and the non micronized creatine, for example. The micronized absorbs better and leads to less water retention. But there are more differences.

It’s also important to learn about which supplements to take before your training, during your workout, and after your weight lifting. There are lots of supplements and many of them are actually pretty darn useful. It’s not all a big crock load of hogwash, you know. A guy’s gotta do his research when it comes to physical exercise and then make sure to do it right. You don’t want to waste any precious time by eating wrong after having hit the gym. You’ve gotta squeeze all the results you can get from your gym training.

This blog is all about electronic toys. The funner, the better. What I really like is not only when toys are of electric nature, but also when they have educational value. Throw in another favorite pastime of mine (eating good food) and you’ve pretty much got yourself a magical recipe for loads of educational and yummy fun!

I have a few kids running around the house and they always like it when I bring home new playtoys for them. In this case, I decided to give Hasbro’s Easy Bake oven a try. It’s the ultimate in toy ovens, or so Hasbro claims. It comes in any color you like, just so long as it’s purple. But I’m find with that. Purple is alright. Besides, I’m buying this for a young boy. What would he possibly want with a pink oven? I’m glad there are no pink editions available of this oven. At least, not to my knowledge there aren’t.

I managed to get my hands on the latest model. The very first model used an incandescent bulb to generate the heat. But these kinds of bulbs are pretty hard to come by these days. No wonder that Hasbro decided to take the leap to another heating element. It’s all fine with me. The newer models use less power so you’re not hearing me complaining. I already spent a small fortune on this oven. Now it’s gotta make itself back. Ha ha, just kidding ofcourse. The one main important thing is that my kid has lots of fun playing with it.

Needless to say, this thing actually works like a real oven. You can actually make stuff in it. I played with an oven like this when I was a kid so I vividly remember how much fun it was to play with. I remember that I screwed up my first few recipes. But at one point, I actually managed to produce a collection of nice smelling chocolate chip cookies. My parent were proud of me, and so was my younger brother at the time. We had loads of fun eating those cookies and speculating about how to produce the next batch. Should we use a bit more sugar and less salt? Or more salt and less sugar? More chocolate? It was anybody’s guess. Lots of cookies were baked after the first successful batch!

You know what I also like? Steaming my own hot dogs!!! I love hot dogs. My dad used to take me out to the ball game, as corny as that might sound. And whenever we were there, I got treated to a really nice big fat one right off the steamer! We had our very own home bun warmer back then. We fired it up regularly. The memories all came back to me after browsing the web and coming across this page:

That really brought back memories. Now that I’m a big boy and making my own money, I’ll probably shell out for one of these babies and I’ll be steaming my own dogs before you know it. I think my kids will be grateful for it one day. I know I’m gonna be grateful for it right now! 😀

A few weeks ago, my kids came back from playing over at a friend’s house. Their friend had showed them a new toy that my own kids instantly became addicted to. It’s Snap Circuits! I had never heard of it before. But after doing only a few minutes of research on a website for electronic toys for both boys and girls that I came across, I can imagine why my kids wanted to have their own Snap Circuit set so bad. Man, is this a fun and educative toy or what. I almost became addicted to it myself, I must confess.

With Snap Circuits, kids get to build logical circuits. But this play set is so ingeniously designed that it presents the player with all of the fun and education and none of the technical difficulties or hassle that you’d expect from learning to work with electrical components for the very first time.

Snap Circuits are precisely what you’d expect them to be. You get to snap components onto a grid and that way can you build a complete circuit to make a light bulb glow, for example. There are no goals to this game. It’s not really a game, actually. It’s more of a toy. You can tinker with it as long as you like and it will never get boring. The sky is literally the limit. You can never be ‘finished’ with Snap Circuits.

It comes with a manual which is very easy to understand. As a result, parental supervision is pretty much not necessary for kids aged as young as 6. As a matter of fact… the level of entry to Snap Circuits is so incredibly low, that even my little girls plays with them. And there I go thinking this was typical boy toy stuff. Nothing could be farther from the truth, it turns out.

I started out with the simplest kit for my kids. I figured it would be wise to simply start at the bottom of the ladder. I’ve already purchased two more kits that are more advanced. Each kit gives kids more components and more possibilities. With every playset, you up the level a little bit and your kids become a little bit smarter because of it.

You can make literally anything with Snap Circuits. Light bulbs, door bells, computer parts, etc. The fun never stops with this kit. I highly recommend it for kids aged anywhere between 4 and 14. Timeless, educational, wholesome fun for the whole family!